


More Better

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: I Want Another First Kiss [16]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Background Character Death, Biblical References, Buffy needs love, Canonical Character Death, Desperation, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e05 Never Kill a Boy On The First Date, Episode: s01e12 Prophecy Girl, Episode: s02e16 Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered, F/M, Ficlet, First Kiss, Groping, Iroy, Present Tense, Rebounding, Seize the Moment, Subtext Becoming Text, Valentine's Day, Xander loves Buffy, some Canon Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2721269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first kiss (and more) that Buffy and Xander might have shared in season two, at the last possible moment that they might have shared it.  (2 of 7)</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Better

“What do you think?” he asks, heart in hand.

A moment of familiar discomfort, as she hopes this isn't what it looks like, then a stab of strange regret as she realizes it really, really isn't. “It's nice,” she manages, straight-faced, noncommittal.

“But do you think _Cordelia_ will like it?” he twists the knife.

Buffy pulls the heart close, examining it to avoid his eyes. She knows she has no right to feel this stabbiness, but she does feel it. “I don't know,” she 'jokes.' “Does she know what one of these is?”

And suddenly it's a whole discussion of their not relationship, in between the lines of 'My Cordy Valentine'. “...the only other person I'm interested in is [bitterly significant pause] unavailable....” She looks away, a silent admission that she stabbed him first, has never taken the knife out. An uneasy silence settles as she sits and thinks and fails to listen to what he is saying until he has to stop and stare at her expectantly.

“What if she wasn't?” Buffy says quietly, finally looking Xander in the eye.

“Dull or comfortable?” he asks, misunderstanding, evidently referring to something he has been saying about Cordelia.

“Unavailable,” Buffy clarifies seriously. “What if she—what if _I_ wasn't unavailable?”

For a moment the air drains out of the universe. When he finally speaks, the emotion in his voice is so intense it scares her a little, almost makes her sorry she asked. “I'd give you my heart on a chain in a minute,” he admits. “Forever! I mean it, honest.” Oh God. She is out on the limb now, at the top of the tallest redwood. No ropes, no harness, no net. Well, no, actually that's not it. She's just pushed him out on the limb. She is the rope, the harness, the net. If he falls now and she doesn't catch him, it will be totally her fault.

“Not that one?” she asks, tapping his coat pocket into which the locket has disappeared. He shakes his head, rendered mute by the mere possibility. “This one?” she asks, standing into his personal zone, pressing her hand to his hammering chest. He nods, and she is in his arms.

They cling to each other, letting the choice settle, need overwhelming fear. At last she lifts her face to his. His eyes are so full of longing, that it seems like he could actually die of desire. A terrible responsibility. For a fractured moment, he's another Owen Thurman. Then he kisses her, and there is no one else. Not for either of them. The world is washed away. A new Heaven and a new Earth. Their lips part like some great, Biblical parting of the waters. They rush back together, like the Red Sea closing over Egypt. A dozen kisses. A hundred. More. Angel is dead and Cordelia is Cordelia. Willow has Oz, which she didn't have before. Not that Buffy has ever thought that that was what was stopping her.

'Either you feel a thing or you don't', he'd said to her last year, a lifetime ago or more. Buffy doesn't know what she feels now, other than way too much tongue and the not-at-all-wrongness of hands on her breasts. But she doesn't feel alone. Whatever Xander might do, he won't turn on her. He isn't going anywhere. And now Buffy does 'feel a thing', a thing she rubs against eagerly, almost gratefully. Because for the first time in a month, the only other thing she feels is safe.  


End file.
